The Gerontologist, Vol 30, Issue 4 510-515, Copyright © 1990 by The Gerontological Society of America
Reduction of psychiatric inpatient stay for older adults by intensive case management
BG Knight and PM Carter
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles 90089-0191.
An intensive case management program was offered for a 5-month period to
all older persons admitted to a county inpatient unit. A quasiexperimental
design was used for program evaluation with comparison to a preintervention
baseline period and to younger adults on the inpatient unit during both
baseline and intervention periods. Length of stay was reduced from 27 days
during baseline to 12 days during intervention. For the younger patient
group, length of stay changed from 11 to 12 days. Contrary to expectation,
older patients were the young-old, mostly first admissions, and with mostly
functional rather than organic diagnoses. This reduction in length of stay
would save about $6,750 per geriatric admission.
